


Resolve

by Deepdarkwaters



Series: Bespoke [24]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Daddy Issues, Dom/sub, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prostitution, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: Of course their first fight since V-Day was always going to be a monster.





	1. Chapter 1

Of course their first fight since V-Day was always going to be a monster. Merlin's seen it coming for months, kept a careful eye on all of it - not preparing to intervene, but to watch how they're both handling things. The way Harry bites his tongue sometimes rather than make one of the exasperated cutting comments that come to easily to him when he's tired and had enough of someone being unreasonable, or the way Eggsy smiles and kisses Harry goodbye like nothing's wrong then goes and sprains his wrist destroying a punching bag in the gym to avoid some inconsequential little disagreement. He sort of wants to tell them they need to let all these microaggressions out into the air because the simmering unrest is starting to needle at him too, but he doesn't. Can't. It feels like their problem to resolve, not something Merlin can take into his lab and mend with soldering irons and duct tape no matter how much he wants to. All he can really do is wait for them to realise that whatever went wrong before, however devastating it was at the time, everything is different now, and not every disagreement needs to end with a flounce out of the country and a bullet to the head.

It starts with a bad mission, some injuries that probably weren't avoidable but felt to Eggsy like they could have been. He's become both a perfectionist _and_ improbably lucky, no real disasters since he began working his own missions beyond his own capture one time, so an innocent Prague taxi driver breaking her nose and arm in a crash when someone started shooting at Eggsy seems to have hit him like a dozen deaths. Merlin, waiting for Lancelot to arrive in Berlin so he can run her through a job, tracks him on the cameras through HQ and into his car and wonders if this'll be the night.

Picking up the feed again at home, Merlin watches Eggsy bang the door shut and force his shoes off by stepping on the backs of them before he runs upstairs in his socks to where Harry's just coming out of the bathroom. Harry's still damp, robe sticking to his skin in places and his hair all shiny curls that even in this aggravated state Eggsy can't resist touching, fascinated now just as much as he was the first time he saw them back when Harry was lying unconscious in hospital.

"Is something the matter?" Harry asks at once. Of course he can sense it; Eggsy's agitation is radiating off him like cartoon stink lines. He presses against Harry's body, clutching fingers tightening in the back of his hair, and Merlin sees on the hallway camera the way Harry's fingers slide up Eggsy's back, both hands splaying over the navy herringbone jacket to pull him closer. Under his shirt and jumper, Merlin can feel the steady throb of Harry's heartbeat trembling the pendant he's had switched on all day, and wishes for the first time that he could feel Eggsy's as well.

"Fucked up," Eggsy mumbles against Harry's neck.

"Well, would you like to talk about it?"

"Wanna hit something."

On the other monitor, Lancelot's plane is coming to a stop on the runway and her car is pulling up near where the steps will end. Time to concentrate. But first, Merlin taps the right pass code to link his office microphone to the speakers at home and calmly says, "Not if you're angry, please, Eggsy."

It doesn't make either of them jump; they're too used to the idea that Merlin's usually hovering around in the background somewhere. "I'm alright," Eggsy says. He twists in Harry's arms, leaning back against the breadth of him and winding their fingers together on his stomach so Harry doesn't think that means he wants to be let go. "I'm cross with me, not Harry. I know what I'm doing." He's looking in turn at all the places he knows the cameras hide - a picture frame around a Doré engraving, a knot in the wood of the spare room door - so Merlin can see his eyes. He's telling the truth, he's furious with himself. There's just no way of telling how easily or quickly that could make the jump to being furious with Harry for no reason other than the million tiny things they've both been avoiding for months. "You're gonna train me to kill people and send me off in the world to do it, but train me to fucking batter your husband then not let me?"

"I object to _batter_ ," Harry says wryly, but he leans a little way over Eggsy's shoulder to press a gentle little kiss to his bruised cheekbone and to glance at the cameras. _This is fine_ , his look says. Merlin's not sure whether Harry's truly aware he'd still say that even if Eggsy had a knife shoved four inches deep into his heart, besotted fool.

"Merlin?" Lancelot says, tapping her glasses on as she gets into the back of the car.

"Yes, I'm here." He switches back to the other microphone. "Batter to your heart's content, I have no doubt Harry can take you down if he needs to. Have fun. I'll be home by eleven."

Watching the video on the train back to the shop a few hours later, he thinks he really should have known better than to worry - whatever's wrong, however bad his temper is, Eggsy's got a good enough handle on it all to treat Harry with exactly the care he deserves, even when that involves splitting stripes into the skin of his back and arse with a whip Merlin meticulously taught him how to use. The trouble starts after, when Eggsy's finished drying Harry's reflexive tears away with his handkerchief and sits beside him on the bed, still dressed but without his jacket and with his sleeves rolled up, to start carefully cleaning the broken welts he's made.

"Alright?" he asks softly, and Harry stretches lazily, unfocused and grinning like a fool with his cheek smushed against the pillow.

"Mm."

"Gonna be sore as fuck in the morning. Victoria been at you too? You got"--he traces the cloth gently across a healing mark on Harry's shoulder blade--"all fingernail scratches here, that weren't me."

"No." He sounds sleepy, floaty. "A prostitute in New York."

Then Eggsy's hand goes still, even sort of recoils, lifting the cloth off Harry's back for a second before he opens his suddenly clenched fingers and lets it drop. _Fuck_. Quickly Merlin taps in the command to switch to a different view of the bedroom on his tablet, one that lets him see Eggy better. He's expecting anger or revulsion, given everything he knows from studying Eggsy's file back when Harry brought him in as his recruit, but not this horrifying blankness that's settled on his face like a mask.

"You paying for it now?" he says, deathly quiet. "Can't get enough pulling literally every fucking person in the world you like the look of, you gotta slum it with hookers as well?"

Harry's trying to twist round to look at him, but the movement must be tugging painfully at the welts on his back because he gives up and presses his nose back into the crumpled pillow. He can barely talk when he's like this anyway, never mind attempt damage control. "Darling," he starts in a muffled, entreating little mumble, but Eggsy gets up and grabs his jacket, snarls _fuck you_ , and slams the door hard behind himself when he leaves.

Merlin checks the time stamp - forty minutes ago - and sets the car to rocket around the last few corners to home way above the speed limit. The house is dark, no lights showing in the windows, and when he lets himself in and heads upstairs the bedroom door is still shut. The thought of Harry being alone all this time when usually he needs some fairly intense coddling to follow his pain highs is nightmarish, like those dreams you get when you know something terrible is about to happen and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Of course it's not really as bad as all that, but the feeling lingers anyway - that he's misjudged all of this, and Harry shivering on top of the covers in the dark on his own is Merlin's fault.

"Alright," he says quietly when Harry looks up squinting at the lowest setting of the dimmer lamp Merlin flicks on. "Let's get some pyjamas on you before you freeze to death." He detours into the bathroom on his way to the dresser, bringing back a glass of water and finding one of the straws he keeps in his bedside cabinet for the times Harry's too far gone to lift his head enough to drink.

"Fussing like a mother hen," Harry grouses, though he drains half the glass in a single grateful suck of the straw. "I was going to get up in a moment but..." He doesn't finish, just makes a vague wobbly hand gesture and turns his face back into the pillow. When Merlin sits beside him and rests one warm hand on the back of his neck, on the place he always touches when he's easing Harry down from a high, Harry makes a soft little sound of pleasure into the pillow and reaches back to pluck clumsily at Merlin's sleeve with his fingertips as though he's trying to hold him there but can't quite manage the grip. "Don't be cross with him."

"I'm fucking livid with him, don't ask me not to be."

"I upset him."

"If he doesn't understand that's not a good enough reason to bugger off and leave you like this, I'm not letting him be alone with you again."

"Merlin."

" _Galahad_." Harry's silent after that, letting Merlin dress him in the oldest softest pyjamas he always wears when he needs something that won't irritate him too badly, and obediently taking a square of dark chocolate Merlin holds to his lips from what Eggsy laughingly called his Professor Lupin Stash when he found it in Merlin's drawer. "Are you hungry? Do you need something for the pain?"

"No and no." His movements are careful, slightly stiff, but he doesn't look as though he's suffering too much other than the tiredness in his eyes and the downturn of his mouth. "I'm fine, only cold."

"Under the covers, then." Merlin holds them up for him, helping Harry settle back onto his stomach and drawing the sheet and blankets right up to his shoulders before leaving him just long enough to wash and change. Harry's drowsing by the time Merlin returns and slips into bed beside him, though the lurch of the mattress makes him open his eyes and try to focus. "Hey. Eyes closed."

"Yes, Merlin," Harry says, sounding amused as he dutifully does as he's told. His hand finds Merlin's under the covers, drawing it closer to kiss his fingers. "I understand you're angry, but please make sure he's alright. I won't sleep until you do."

"You _will_ sleep or I'll inject every one of your own stun darts into your neck." But he relents, of course, in part because he can't deny Harry anything, but mostly because he's worried as well - because fury is irrelevant, Eggsy's a part of their foundations now, and the house feels incomplete without him here as though he took half the doors and windows with him when he left.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Merlin," he manages eventually, sounding like he's a swallow away from choking.
> 
> "I'm coming to get you." Well that sounds far more fucking menacing than he intended. "Eggsy," he tries again, soft, the way Harry croons to JB when the pug's acting like the word 'bathtime' really means 'execution'. "We saved the world. We can fix your idiot head."

When Eggsy finally replies, it's been hours since the blue ticks let Merlin know he'd seen the messages.

_Yeah I'm ok  
Is Harry?_

Then several minutes of _Eggsy is typing_ appearing and disappearing at the top before he finally hits send again.

_My heads just fucked up rn idk what to do_

Merlin wants to tell him _you could come home_ , but he doesn't particularly want to be here right now and he can't imagine Eggsy does either, not after what happened and not while Harry's at work without them. Instead he calls him and listens to Eggsy breathe for a moment like he's trying to get difficult words out but can't find the right way to shape the sounds.

"Merlin," he manages eventually, sounding like he's a swallow away from choking.

"I'm coming to get you." Well that sounds far more fucking menacing than he intended. "Eggsy," he tries again, soft, the way Harry croons to JB when the pug's acting like the word 'bathtime' really means 'execution'. "We saved the world. We can fix your idiot head."

That makes him laugh, like Merlin hoped it would. "I'm at my mum's."

"I'll be ten minutes."

He looks half-dead when he gets in the passenger side, dark circles smudged like bruises under his eyes. He must have slept about as much last night as Merlin did. "I went back," he says immediately, no hello or anything, straight into it. "I know I shoulda never left anyway but I went back, but you was already pulling up outside. I knew you'd look after him and I'd only fuck it up even more if I come back in, so..."

He trails off, makes a helpless sort of hand gesture, then pulls his hoodie sleeves over his fingers and stares down at them in his lap. He seems so much younger like this. Merlin's used to him now in his suits, or lazing around the house in his underwear and one of Harry's stolen cardigans like some shameless kind of pin-up boy for middle-aged perverts far too fond of knitwear, but this morning he looks uncannily like the lad Harry rescued from arrest so long ago: exhausted, defeated, but still boiling with sullen rage.

"I know why you're angry," Merlin starts, trying to tread carefully through this unfamiliar emotional minefield, but apparently not carefully enough from the narrow-eyed sideways look Eggsy flashes him.

"Yeah, I seen that bloke in New York screaming the fucking hotel down, you didn't bother telling me he was some rent boy."

"Escort."

When Eggsy laughs this time there's no humour in it, only bitterness. "What's the difference?"

"About a thousand dollars."

"Fuck this. I ain't--"

He stops short with his fingers on the door handle, and Merlin glances through the window to see what he's seeing - movement behind the living room blinds, a shadow like someone's there watching. His mum.

"Just go," Eggsy says tiredly. "Just fucking drive somewhere, I ain't doing this here when they just got settled."

So Merlin weaves them around the morning traffic away from curious eyes, heading in the direction of home. He starts to ask whether Eggsy wants to go back to the house or to the shop to talk with Harry or somewhere else, some kind of neutral ground without all the lingering ghosts of everything that's happened between them all, but when he glances over he sees Eggsy's fallen asleep, and he's not faking it to get out of talking. By now Merlin knows the way he looks and breathes when he's sleeping as well as he knows Harry's absurdly sweet little snores - Eggsy looks younger still, frown creases vanished, cheek leaning on his hand and his head lolling sideways against the window.

It's a peacefulness Harry loves especially; Merlin's spent countless silent hours watching Eggsy though Harry's eyes in a dozen different countries, tracing every freckle and eyelash. _You could draw him_ Merlin murmured once, half-asleep in his HQ bedroom while Harry watched Eggsy's dreaming eyelids flicker in their Athens hotel. _Perfectly, without looking. You must know him by heart_ \- and he awoke in the morning to a horrible stick figure drawn in biro on hotel stationery and left propped in front of Harry's still-recording glasses on the bedside table. All romanticism aside, Harry was a lousy artist and the only reason Merlin knew it was supposed to be Eggsy at all was the speech bubble emanating from its grinning mouth with the word "bruv" in the middle, and the ridiculous number of tiny scribbled hearts Harry had crammed into the rest of the page in lieu of any real talent.

Neutral ground seems like it's probably the safest option, but Merlin drives past any number of parks and restaurants because he doesn't want to stop the car and wake Eggsy up - whatever they have to talk about next, it can't possibly be made any more difficult by letting him sleep.

By the time he starts to stir they're already way past Basildon. He wakes slowly, yawning and pawing at his face, and then all at once, as though he's just remembered where he is, or at least where he thought he was. He rubs at his eyes again, squints out the window, and tiredly says, "The fuck?"

"Southend or Shoeburyness?"

"Southend makes me think of puking out my nose on my cousin's stag do."

"Shoeburyness it is." Not that there's anything there to see or do, but it's as far as you can get without falling into the sea or changing direction so it seems as good a stopping place as any.

"Merlin," Eggsy says beside him, but even when Merlin glances over that seems to be all there is. Eggsy huddles down into his hoodie again to avoid him, staring out of the window at the dull suburban scenery passing them by all the way to the coast.

They stop in a little gravel car park right at the edge of the water. For a while they sit in silence staring out to where the murky stretch of the North Sea meets the blue sky and enormous fluffy clouds at the horizon, then Eggsy's stomach rumbles alarmingly like a thunderclap and he looks so horrified with himself that for the first time in ages Merlin feels something close to the urge to laugh.

"Didn't bother with breakfast?" he asks. Eggsy looks vaguely shamefaced and shakes his head. "Me neither. Let's get chips."

There's a chippy van near the entrance to the car park selling massive polystyrene cones the size of dunce hats so the vinegar all trickles down five inches deep at the bottom. Merlin hands one and a can of Coke to Eggsy, who instead of thanking him says, "What, no deep fried Mars bars? What kinda Scot are you?"

"Cheeky prick, shut your mouth."

Eggsy ducks his head to hide his smile and dodges around Merlin to head for the gate leading to the sea path. He's eating his chips carefully because they're fresh out of the fryer and still far too hot, spearing them on his little wooden fork and tearing half off with his teeth, holding the chunk there until it's cooled by the salty breeze blowing in from the sea. Every now and then he glances at Merlin while they're walking like he's fully aware they should be talking as well, but - perhaps understandably - he seems to be having trouble getting started.

"You wanna sit?" he says eventually, cocking his head at some kind of crumbling bit of old harbour wall facing the water. He climbs onto it easily from the path, swinging his legs and tapping the heels of his trainers erratically against the stone like he's nervous, and holds Merlin's chip cone for him until he's settled beside him.

The next thing Eggsy says is several minutes later, and very quiet, as though it's taken all this time and all these miles to work up the nerve. "Why's he pay people when he could have anyone he wants?"

"Convenience, sometimes," Merlin replies after a moment's thought. They've been doing it for so long, it feels strange to have to figure out the wording of an explanation, but trying to gloss over any of this for Eggsy's sake would be a monumentally terrible idea if they're really working for a way to fix what's gone wrong. "No time or energy to go through all the rigmarole of eyes meeting across a crowded bar and so on. And conscience, often. He's got so many friends or at least acquaintances he sleeps with, who understand this, you know, _arrangement_ of ours. It's not the kind of thing he wants to spring on any old stranger he picks up. And it doesn't happen often. It's just sometimes when he's away, especially when he's away for a long time - there are agencies, professionals. People who like their work, and get paid well, and enjoy Harry's company. They're not..." He stops, trying to figure out the most tactful way of saying it, but Eggsy interrupts.

"Not like me," he says, stabbing furiously at the last few chips bobbing about in his cone full of vinegar.

"I suppose you could say that."

"Not arses for hire freezing half to death down Smith Street in all fucking weather."

"No."

"Right." Eggsy tips his cone upside down, watching the vinegar splash out onto the sand below. His face is unreadable. It wasn't always like that; Kingsman trained him well. "I thought I was alright about, you know, all that shit what happened years ago. Like it weren't even close to being the worst thing I dealt with back then so why make a fuss? But never seen him fuck a bloke before. I dunno, spose I assumed he just weren't into it. Then I seen him with that guy on your feed and it was hot as. But then I find out he paid him and it's like, alright then, he ain't getting that off me cos I'm still fucked in the head from years ago, gotta go and rent some stranger's arse to get his kicks."

"His name's Joshua. Harry's known him for years."

"If you're just gonna miss the point why am I even fucking bothering?"

"I don't understand what your point is." Merlin hurls the last of his chips onto the path for the stalking seagulls to fight over and stacks his cone upside-down with Eggsy's to free his hands, reaching for Eggsy's chin and insistently turning his face up so he can't carry on avoiding eye contact. "You thought Harry was using people who had no choice but to take his money?"

"No. I don't know." He leans back, tugging his chin away from Merlin's fingers and staring down at the sand again, at the last little blots of vinegar like old bloodstains dirtying the shore. "He didn't _say_ that's what it was--"

"You'd just spent an hour making him bleed and cry to deal with your own bad mood, I'm amazed he managed as much of an explanation as he did," Merlin snaps, then immediately regrets it even though Eggsy's set his face into that blank mask again and isn't showing any evidence that the words even reached him. "You _know_ what you can do to him," Merlin says, gentler, slightly awkward - talking about how things feel physically comes so easily to him, but talking about _feelings_ will forever be alien. "Not just taking him out of his mind, but - you know he adores you. Don't you?" he adds, suddenly wondering. Eggsy _must_ know, surely, after all this time, after everything.

The crack in Eggsy's resolve starts slowly: barely anything at all and then a gradual spread throughout his whole body until his hands are shaking and the devastated look on his face is enough to make Merlin reach for him, even though he rarely does so even in private and never has before outside of their bedroom. He slips his arm around Eggsy's shoulders and Eggsy leans into him, hiding his face against Merlin's neck, shivering under the gentle pull of the fingers tugging his hood down and stroking through his hair.

"You do know, don't you?" Merlin murmurs, awkwardly kissing the top of Eggsy's head. Not realising he's doing it until it's done, his hand comes to rest on the back of Eggsy's neck, stroking slowly through the cropped hair at his nape the same way he always does when he's trying to shush Harry to sleep or help him down from the clouds. "You know Harry and I love you?"

He thinks the vague motion under his chin must be Eggsy nodding his head, and it feels like some kind of turning point. Good; this is quite enough public hugging for one lifetime.

"Alright, then." He loosens the arm around Eggsy, leans back a little bit - doesn't want to shove him away, but give him space to move back himself if he's done, which he does, sniffling lightly and scrubbing his nose on his sleeve but looking far more awake and alive than he did just a few minutes ago. "Understand if you ever leave Harry like that again nobody will ever find your body and everyone you love will forget you ever existed."

"Alright! Jesus fuck, mixed signals or what."

"I can love you and still think you're a knee-jerking fucking imbecile at the same time, I've had decades of practice with Harry. I can't even tell you how long it took me to clean up the legal mess he made last time someone disrespected you for surviving." He holds out his hand to help Eggsy to his feet, but apparently Eggsy's not done hugging yet: he wraps his arms around Merlin's waist when they're standing, tight enough that it's really more of a cling than a hug, and only seems to relax a bit when Merlin's hand returns to that place on his neck: not moving, just a warm reassuring weight there saying everything he needs to hear without any more words.

"You wanna go home?" Eggsy says eventually, muffled in wool where he's got his face pressed to Merlin's collarbone.

"That depends, do you want to get off me so I can drive?"

"Not particularly."

"Alright. Then we'll stay."

"Merlin, this place is a fucking shithole." But he still doesn't move except to start drawing gentle little circles on Merlin's back with his fingertips, and Merlin only moves to hold him tighter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just cos your whole shitty life's your fucking _career_ don't mean mine is too."
> 
> "Then maybe I made a mistake in choosing you," Harry says mildly, and turns his attention back to his laptop screen.

Eggsy seemed to have had the very best intentions - that determined look on his face and something lighter and less strained in his eyes throughout the whole drive back to London - but somehow as soon as he sees Harry he loses his nerve and reverts back to helpless, useless anger.

"I fucking hate it when you sing along to the Antiques Roadshow theme tune."

Harry, sitting behind his desk with a cup of tea and a slice of battenberg in his hand, looks bewildered at all of this - the door slamming open, the whirlwind of fury that's just stomped right over his study to square up to him over something absolutely ridiculous, Merlin lingering in the open doorway. For a moment he looks like he's not going to respond at all, just carry on avoiding everything like they've been doing since before V-Day, until his jaw does that stubborn thing Merlin knows far too well and he stares back at Eggsy with the calculated disdain he's perfected over the last three decades for anyone he wants to utterly destroy.

"I fucking hate it when you balance the new toilet roll on top of the empty cardboard tube instead of taking half a second from your charmed life to change it."

" _My_ charmed life? You spend ninety quid on fucking baroque print Versace underwear!"

"And what the bloody hell does my wardrobe have to do with you? I've never once complained about those atrocities you call jackets."

"You don't have to, you just buy me endless shit _you_ like and tell me how good I look in it, it's fucking manipulative."

Harry's got a good handle on his tells usually, but he's tired today and Merlin recognises a subtle tightness in his mouth at that one.

"Well, by all means go back to wearing your polyester creations if you'd rather, but I hardly think it'll be conducive to your career."

"Just cos your whole shitty life's your fucking _career_ don't mean mine is too."

"Then maybe I made a mistake in choosing you," Harry says mildly, and turns his attention back to his laptop screen.

Merlin's getting a headache. "Harry," he says, quiet, warning, and Harry looks up with that calculated innocent face he wears like a mask when he's trying to win a fight by being the most annoying person in the world instead of with any decent, sensible argument.

"Yes, Merlin?"

He doesn't respond in words, just turns his eyes to Eggsy and Harry follows his gaze like a reflex: lingering over the stiffness of Eggsy's shoulders, the way he's clutching his fists tightly at his sides, then something on his face that Merlin can't see from his place by the door finally makes Harry's mask slip. He looks exhausted now, wounded, though not by anything Eggsy yelled at him.

"I'm sorry," he says immediately, very quietly, soft and sincere. "I hope you know that's not at all true."

"Then why would you say it?"

Harry's silent for a moment, as though he's considering the most and least terrible ways to tell the truth. "Because I wanted to hurt you."

"Why?"

"Because that's just a fucking ugly thing I do sometimes."

"Alright, then," Eggsy says, like that's a perfectly reasonable explanation, and turns to leave the room.

"Eggsy, wait," Harry starts, then makes a hissing sound of pain at the lurch of getting to his feet too quickly and grabs at the edge of the desk to steady himself.

Eggsy moves with the level of speed he usually saves for a brutal fight with sixteen enemies: dashing the few steps to Harry's side of the desk, grabbing at his elbow, his other hand going straight to Harry's face to cup his jaw and gently stroke his cheekbone. "Alright?" he says again, softer this time, tilting his face up to look at Harry's eyes the way he always does when he's asking for a kiss. "You need to sit down?"

"No." His fingertips slide up Eggsy's hoodie sleeve and around to rest tentatively at the back of his neck. "That extra cushion isn't the least bit helpful."

Merlin sees the briefest flicker of a smile on Eggsy's face before he's guarded again, eyes skittering away from Harry's and landing instead somewhere around the region of his tie knot. "I hate it when you don't tell me it's too much when it is."

"Nothing's too much." Still hesitant, very slowly, Harry draws Eggsy closer and rests his chin on his shoulder. "Though I hate it when you fly off the handle and vanish instead of talking to me," he says quietly, just about managing to keep most of the reproach out of his voice and sugarcoating the remainder by starting to gently stroke the back of Eggsy's hair.

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I won't again, I swear."

Merlin feels like he should probably leave and let them work it out before he succumbs to the urge to bang their thick heads together, but Harry looks at him over Eggsy's shoulder just as Eggsy reaches a hand out behind himself, and he can't leave. Doesn't want to leave. He goes to them instead, ignoring the hand but standing close enough for Eggsy to lean back against his chest and stretch up to press a clumsy little kiss to Merlin's jaw just as Harry's kissing his mouth.

"I hate it how I'm living here now but nobody can tell." Eggsy's voice is low, eyes still downturned until Harry touches his chin and coaxes his face up. "You asked me to move in and I wanna be here but not like your lodger or whatever. Not if I'm just meant to fit my whole life in around all your stupid junk shop trinkets."

"I hate it when you call my beloved possessions _junk shop trinkets_ ," Harry says, affronted, but he relents when Eggsy stares him down and admits, "I suppose I might have been a _bit_ selfish in all of this."

"A bit."

"You're the first new person I've lived with in decades. I'm used to Merlin not caring what I put on the walls."

"I care," Merlin interrupts. He's got his arm around Harry's waist, holding Eggsy in between them, and starts to slowly, gently trail his fingers up and down Harry's injured back for the hungry look he gets in his eyes at the surge of adrenaline from the raw places being touched. "I've just learned to choose my battles. You two might give that a go."

"Yeah," Eggsy says He goes silent again, looking at Harry as though he's trying to learn every line and contour of his face, then adds, "I fucking mean it about singing the telly tunes. I can hear you bellowing from anywhere in the house and it does my nut in."

"Well, I mean it about the toilet paper, and leaving teabags in the sink. And I would really very much prefer it if you didn't, you know, make a habit of the hit and run."

"I said I'm sorry." Eggsy rises up on tiptoe in his trainers, taking his weight off Merlin and transferring it to Harry instead when he winds both arms around his neck and rocks up to kiss him fiercely. "Swear down it won't happen again, that's the fucking worst thing I ever done."

"What rubbish, it wasn't nearly as bad as always leaving your pubic trimmings stuck to the side of the bath."

Problem resolved? It appears so. Merlin detaches himself from them and they barely seem to notice him go, too busy wrapped around each other and kissing with an unfettered fervour he's not seen in them for weeks. _It's just that I was worried about you_ , he hears Harry say, but Eggsy's reply is hidden by the click of the closing study door.

* * *

When Eggsy comes into the kitchen to nosy into the pots on the stove, he's wearing pyjama trousers and a 007 t-shirt and his hair's still damp from the shower, gleaming and golden. He looks even more exhausted than before but lighter, somehow, as though he's put down something heavy he's been carrying for far too long.

"Harry's sleeping. Gonna have to wake him up for dinner, he can't just live off cake."

"I imagine sleep's going to do him more good than food. He can eat later."

"Suppose." Eggsy turns round to lean against the counter, watching Merlin's floury hands form dumplings to drop into the stew pot. "Thought you mighta been up to, you know, watch or whatever."

"I could hear you well enough. Me and everyone south of Birmingham."

That makes him laugh, slightly abashed although not very much. "Yeah, well. We never done make-up sex before. Ain't sure it's worth the fighting, but still pretty fucking memorable." He makes himself useful putting dirty utensils into the dishwasher while Merlin's rinsing the suet off his hands, then creeps over to the sink, barefoot and almost silent, to slip his arms around Merlin's waist and rest his cheek against his back. "Sorry I fucked up."

"No lasting damage." Merlin begins to trace over Eggsy's knuckles with his wet fingertips, down the back of his clasped hands to rest on his wrist, on the stripe of white where his watch usually sits. He's just about to say something about the fight being long overdue anyway when Eggsy speaks up, quiet and muffled against the back of Merlin's jumper.

"I love you too. I never said earlier, when you did."

"You don't have to say it back, it's not church."

"Yeah, but I want to." He stays where he is, cheek pressed to Merlin's shoulder blade, hands clasped tightly on his stomach, and after several minutes of silence he murmurs, "Merlin?"

"Eggsy."

"This is gonna sound fucking weird as fuck so I'm staying here and don't wanna look at you."

Well, that's vague and alarming. "Right," Merlin says cautiously.

"Sometimes you feel like what I always thought having a dad would feel like." Merlin goes dead still at that, and Eggsy quickly adds, "Like _not_ teaching me how to cut your husband and stuff, I don't mean that, the blowjobs and everything, that ain't what I mean."

The urge to turn around and look at him is overwhelming. Merlin concentrates on his hands, the gentle wet glide of his fingers still casually stroking over Eggsy's.

"Just, looking after me and that," Eggsy says, sounding desperately awkward and like he wishes he hadn't said it at all. "Helping me fix my car and coming with me to the football. Tough love, talking me out my own fucked-up head. Taking me to the seaside. Even though it was a shit seaside. I wanna go Brighton next time."

"We can go anywhere you want."

"Have I made it weird?"

"Define weird. You spent last Saturday night with your arm shoulder-deep in someone else's husband's pelvis."

"Fucksake, don't say it like that." He goes silent again, breathing quietly; Merlin can feel the motion of Eggsy gently rubbing his cheek against his jumper like a needy cat. "Didn't you and Harry ever want kids?"

He's glad for their position now, not really sure of what his face might be doing though he's fairly sure it's something he doesn't want anyone to see. "Barely possible in this job. That's an obstacle you'll have to consider at some point if you ever want a family of your own."

"That ain't an answer."

"No." He remembers Harry at Eggsy's age, brash and brilliant, heaping all the affection he could spare onto his little dog. Harry at thirty-five splashed in blood and with the most horrifying look of rage Merlin ever saw on his face as he and Bedivere went in and out of a cellar in Lisbon carrying a dozen kidnapped malnourished children to safety on his hip. And Harry as he is now, growing softer and milder as he ages, forgetting to care about creases and grass stains on his beautiful tailored trousers and sitting down in the park to play elaborate Barbie stories with Eggsy's sister on picnics. "You have to understand how different things were when we were your age. It was never something we talked about because it was never a possibility. Besides, Harry's incredibly selfish."

Eggsy snorts a little laugh at that and unclasps his hands so he can wind his fingers with Merlin's instead. "He's great with Daisy."

"He likes being able to give her back. He likes his own space. You know how he is. All his _junk shop trinkets_ and pristine rococo furniture. Grubby little fingers in his house would be his absolute nightmare."

"You still ain't answering properly," Eggsy says softly, kissing the dip of Merlin's spine, and Merlin lets his breath out slowly in something that might be a sigh if he had any less control over it.

"I'll admit there's something attractive about the idea, but it's not practical." He hears his own voice turn sardonic, the only way to speak such ridiculous notions he's never let out in the open before, but there's a strange undertone of wistfulness he wasn't quite expecting. "The thought of immortalising Harry through procreation was always appealing to me, in an abstract sort of way."

Eggsy sounds amused at that, and also a bit like he wants to roll his eyes. "A mad scientist sort of way."

"It's a much better idea in theory than it would be in reality. I certainly don't feel as though we've missed out on anything by spending our lives exactly as we have."

"Well, you got JB now. He needs as much looking after as a baby, spoiled little fuck. And, you know. Me. Sometimes, kind of. If that ain't totally fucked up."

It's fairly fucked up, Merlin thinks, but then so is everything else that makes this nonsense work. "Will you let me turn around now?"

Eggsy hesitates for a moment, then says, "Yeah, but don't look at me," so Merlin turns and leans against the sink, draws Eggsy right into a hug, strokes through his damp hair, and holds him there with his eyes closed until the timer on the stove finally beeps the zero.


End file.
